fun times in heathrow

mom and dad, i made it to london! after a 9 hour flight we arrived at 8:45 in london this morning (this is london time which is 6 hours ahead of US) about 3:45 am in US time. i have now been sitting in the london-heathrow airport since 8:45 am...it is now 2:36 pm. my flight doesn't leave until 7:10 so i decided to blog because the boredom is definitely setting in. i sat next to a rather interesting woman on the plane ride over who asked me in all seriousness, "is water good for you?" i replied with a simple "yes" and buckled my seatbelt for the long journey. it actually went rather quickly and i was able to sleep a lot! now we are just waiting and waiting and waiting...im just too excited to get to zambia it feels like an eternity. my fellow summer staffer and friend rebecca lerohl is asleep on the chairs next to me and we are sleeping on rotation so that someone can watch our stuff. i am suppossed to be on gaurd at the moment yet here i sit, blogging. anyways, that's about all there is to report other than the fact that security took my one and only tube of toothpaste. pray for the rest of zambia. me without toothpaste is a frightening thought. luckily, DFW airport was selling travel-sized toothpaste for only 3 dollars each! so i spent $12 on 4 travel sized toothpaste. yaaay! please be praying for this layover to quickly pass and for good rest on the next 10 hour flight. i am so excited to get back to zambia and would love to make it there just as quickly as possible :) nicole: i started reading "when helping hurts" because the tvs were broken on the flight. so, i had a lot of time to get started on the book ;) this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. if anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth. john 3:16-18

less than 24 hours

so, here i sit again in starbucks on my last day in the states eating a ham & swiss sandwich that tastes very american. at this point i am mostly excited and a little nervous. im all packed and have said almost all my goodbyes. i just finished having coffee with a group of girls that have been some of my closest friends throughout the majority of my life. nicole, gayle, ariel and julianne if you are reading this I LOVE ALL OF YOU <3 thanks for being there for me this morning. last night i had dinner with my family, including my grandparents, at the great hula hut near downtown austin. i had a great time enjoying their company and talking about what is to come. countless other friends from church and school have made my last few weeks at home unforgettable. each and every one of you is special and i have all of you to thank. oh hey! yesterday, i was in the "the daily sentinel" of nacogdoches, tx where i attend school. thank you kim foli! you are the best and the article is beautiful :) here is a plan/itinerary of the next several months of my life. 

may 29-drive from austin to dallas then fly from dallas, tx to london, england 

may 30-fly from london, england to lusaka, zambia

may 31-june 31-work on summer staff with family legacy missions international at camp LIFE 

july 1-fly from lusaka, zambia back to london, england for a 3 week vacation with my family until school starts (most likely we will be visiting italy and spain while we are at it ;)

july 24-fly from london, england to johannesburg, south africa

july 25-fly from johannesburg, south africa to gaborone, botswana
july 25-november 30-attend the university of botswana! :)

december 1-fly from gaborone, botswana to johannesburg, south africa

december 1-fly from johannesburg, south africa to london, england

december 2-fly from london, england to dallas, tx then drive back to austin, tx!

waving goodbye!!...it looks more like a hi-5 but i'm in public
and i'm to embarrassed to take it again... ;)

6 countries in 6 months. it's absolutely crazy but i can't wait to see what God has planned from may 29-december 2. i'm going on an adventure hopefully filled with service, joy and the love of Christ Jesus poured on those around me. i feel special that i am getting to do this and am still in awe that He has chosen me. i just don't get it. i hope to be His hands and feet to the people. also, i found a church called naledi baptist fellowship in the impoverished area of old naledi that i would really like to get involved with. i can't wait to hug these african children, listen to their laughs and see their smiles. i want to be a part of their lives and be engaged. pray that i don't get to frustrated when i can't provide for all of their needs or fix all of their problems. jesus is the healer, i am not. i need to remind myself of that constantly. just to nail down the point that the Lord provides, HEB (my employer of nearly 4 years) is letting me keep my job. i already go on an "educational leave of absence" during the school year leaving about only 3 months that i work at heb each year with the majority of my hours coming from shifts during the summer. i will be gone all summer to be in africa this year. HEB called me yesterday and my top managers decided that they didn't want to hinder me from such a great opportunity and so when i get back in december  I STILL HAVE A JOB. each employee that goes on leave is required to work a total of 300 hours per year to remain employed. i will have a total of 150. only half, yet by some miracle they are letting that slide so that i can do both. go to africa for 6 months and keep my job. all i have to say is, God is good. what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love Him. 1 corinthians 2:9

fostina ngala, betty cooper-magee & the Lord's provisions

this is fostina. she is about 11 or 12 years old and has lost both parents to "the sickness" (most likely HIV/AIDS). they passed in 2007 making this sweet girl a double-orphan for the past 5 years of her childhood. in 2010 when i met her, she told me that she currently was living with her grandmother, who had  also been caring for several other children in her old age. this is common really throughout much of africa, due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. often grandparents, neighbors, or aunties&uncles will have several non-biological children that they care for because a child has lost both parents from AIDS. On a further note, according to the CIA world factobook zambia has the 6th highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world and botswana has the 2nd highest. as you can imagine situations like fotstina's are unfortunately common. fostina also told me that she eats just one meal a day and by "meal" she means one small serving of shema  (the staple food of zambia-a rice based product that has almost no flavor but is filling) and a half a glass of tea. something that would be considered "snack size" here in the states. as if this weren't enough, fostina has malaria. clearly, the devil has enjoyed making a mess of this precious child's life, but the Lord promises in john 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." and let me tell you, the Lord does not make empty promises. for 2 years, i have been praying that God would provide a sponsor for my sweet baby fostina. my parents and i have even gotten into arguments at times because i decided that i wanted to sponsor her with my small minimum wage on-campus job's paycheck. my parents being more realistic than i, would consistently tell me that i need to wait until i am more financially stable to provide for another human being and that if God had someone for her He would bring the sponsor to me. that's where sweet, kind-hearted betty cooper-magee comes into the picture. betty is from the houston area and we had served on a mission trip to honduras together last august. this woman is so full of love and ready to serve the Lord, it astounds me. about 2 months ago, she contacted me to tell me that she felt the Lord calling her to sponsor one of my zambian babies. seriously, i cried. WHAT. of course, fostina was who i thought of instantly. literally, a week before i had gotten into an argument with my parents again about sponsoring fostina myself and all along he had betty in mind for fostina. of course, my small faith didn't believe there was anyone else out there that would be willing to sponsor any of my children and so i thought i had to do it myself. God is so much bigger than that. and now here is the part where YOU can come in. i believe in the power of prayer. due to some changes in family legacy's sponsorship program, i will have to personally try to go find fostina in the compound (village, neighborhood) that she lived in two years ago called matero. reality is, is that fostina had malaria first of all. the question of whether or not she is still with us on earth is definitely up in the air. also, she lived with her elderly grandmother and that was 2 years ago! her grandmother may have passed, in this case fostina may have been moved to a different compound, different country or may even now be a street child, making it near impossible for me to find her. so, please pray. i will also only have maybe an hour or two hour time slot to find this little girl. pray that God puts the right people in my path that know her and know where she is. betty is so willing and excited to sponsor any child but fostina would really benefit from this sponsorship and honestly, i really want to be a part of being able to provide this for this sweet child. please, please, please be praying that i can find her. on a different note, i now have about 10 long skirts and have worn nothing but long skirts for the past 4 days. i am truly becoming african ;)

8 more days until departure! and lastly, I AM OFFICIALLY 20 YEARS OLD!! :) as of yesterday. i had a wonderful day full of love and people that are really special to me. i'm grateful to be alive and I'M READY TO GO TO AFRICA! romans 8:6 for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

matthew6:34

this picture brings me peace. it is a constant reminder of why i am so thankful and astounded that God chooses to use me, such an inadequate human, to laugh and play with such precious children. this picture makes me excited for what the future holds, especially the coming month of june in zambia, which will be devoted to benefiting the children of lusaka, zambia. the past few days however, have been among the most frustrating in this whole process. different classes have fallen through, things have cost more than expected and I am now frantically trying to e-mail professors that I don't know and ask them to approve last minute classes. to be completely honest, the point of this blog is to mostly ask for prayer. i leave exactly 2 weeks from yesterday and i am stressed. the stacks of paper work are unending. the list of phone calls I need to make is eternal. Oh, and the number of e-mails I need to send out i can promise you is somewhere in the thousands. different people are calling me telling me they need me to do this and that, fill out this form or that form and i feel like i am slowly losing my mind. please pray for sanity and peace about the whole thing. at the same time i'm trying to deal with the fact that i will be gone for 6 months. there are so many things i will miss. i know 6 months isn't that long but i am not as strong as i like to think i am. it scares me more and more everyday to think about being away from my family and everything i know for that long. on the other hand, we finally got my flights sorted out! hallelujah! that is a huge deal and i feel so relieved that that is now taken care of. i have a lot to be thankful for and many people to thank for helping me through this whole process. not counting today, i leave in 13 DAYS! today, more than ever, i need this reminder- therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. each day has enough trouble of its own. matthew 6:34

shoes today, school tomorrow, hope for the future

for those of you who don't know her, i'm sorry. bette austin is just about the coolest grandma on the earth and i am lucky enough to come from the same family line. this morning i went to church and for the third time my grandma invited me to come to her sunday school class called "hearts of grace" and share with them about zambia. family legacy missions international (the organization i go to zambia with) runs what is called "camp life" every summer for the zambian children. every year there are approximately 1000 zambian children from the poorest areas around the capital city, lusaka, per week that are bused in to camp. this year, family legacy decided to work on a special project involving providing school shoes for the kids, entitled "shoes today, school tomorrow, hope for the future". in zambia, each child has to have a very specific pair of black shoes that cost $20 in order to attend school. while $20 may not sound like a lot to some of us, imagine living on a dollar a day, trying to feed 6 kids with that one dollar (plus yourself) and then trying to buy even just one pair of $20 school shoes. a near impossible feat for some of these families. family legacy asked that each person volunteering at camp life this year go to their friends, co-workers, family members and ask for $20 from a total of 10 different people. each volunteer going to zambia should have 10 children at camp, and so after raising all 10 $20's (totaling to $200) each child should get a free pair of school shoes at camp with the money raised at home. so, back to the original point, today when i went to my grandma's "hearts of grace" class i mentioned this project to them almost in passing. I HAD 7 WOMEN DONATE $20. just on the spot. $140 in a matter of minutes. i only need one more $20 bill in order to have all 10 of my future children get their school shoes this year! i was completely amazed. these women also have donated funds this year for me to go to zambia and i have been so blessed by the way that God has used them to show Himself to me. i rarely see such selfless giving the way that those women have given to me and i feel lucky to sit back and take it all in. money is no object to God. if He wants something done, someway, somehow it will be accomplished. ps-go give your mom a hug ;)
http://familylegacy.com/shoes/

and so the adventure begins

so, here i sit in a starbucks located two minutes away from the house i grew up in with all the comforts and familiarity that life in the austin, tx area has brought me so far. i am currently 19 years old but in just 10 days i will turn 20.  just two days ago i completed my second year of college at stephen f. austin state university in nacogdoches, tx where i said goodbye to my dorm room, roommate of 2 years, one particularly special person, a collection of wonderful friends, and the school that i love. on may 29th i will be setting off on an adventure that i didn't even know was in my future until 2 short weeks ago.  here's the thing, when God has something for you, it will happen.  i didn't realize how true this was until i started looking into studying abroad. i knew in my heart, i wanted to be in africa if i went anywhere. i have loved africa for years. my heart is drawn to the people and their smiles in a way i can't even explain. i can't stay away, ever since i first went to zambia in 2010. also, that is where the name "chikondi" originated. some of my girls at camp in zambia had a hard time pronouncing my name (lindsay) and so they gave me a zambian name. chikondi means "love" in nyanja (language spoken in lusaka, zambia) and that made me feel special. from there came the idea of looking into study abroad a bit more. i wasn't sure if it was financially feasible but i decided that at the very least, i could ask questions and try to be reasonable. if it was something that was out of my reach, i would give it up. this was my way of trusting the Lord because i often run away with my ideas and forget to be logical. i can't even explain in words what happened from there. things fell into place like i have never seen before. i met with ines, the study abroad coordinator at my university and quickly decided on the university of botswana in gaborone, botswana, africa. for months, i had already been planning on going on a return mission trip zambia for all of june (zambia is the country located right above botswana). after talking it over with my parents, we decided that the only way this would really work is if i could go to the university of botswana in the fall of 2012 due to the fact that i would already be in that part of the world in june through the beginning of july. we would get almost free airfare. for those of you who know how expensive airfare to africa is, you will realize how big of a blessing that is. there were a few other things that made the fall work out much better than the spring as well. the only problem was, was that it was already the end of april when i started figuring all of this out and the university of botwana begins their semester at the end of july. also, i would be leaving the united states at the end of may for zambia and potentially not be coming back in between the mission trip in zambia and school in botswana.  therefore, we had one month to sort out EVERYTHING. this instantly seemed like an impossible task the moment i realized the application deadline had already passed a week earlier to even apply to the program. i went to ines (the study abroad coordinator) and explained my situation. she pulled some strings and convinced ISEP (the study abroad program) to let me apply late but they needed my 12 page application by monday. it was thursday. i frantically began running around campus meeting with all 3 of my advisers, random professors, the academic dean, the registrar and financial aid. ALL of these people had to sign off on different courses and forms that needed approval. i kept praying that if this wasn't what God had for me He would shut the door in my face and make it extremely obvious. time after time i would get a signature or be looking for a professor and turn the corner and they would be standing right there. all sorts of special arrangements and favors have been done for me to be able to do this. to God be the glory. He knew the whole time that this is what He had for me and here i am just living my life being amazed by His blessings. i got the application in by monday by an act of God and just received word this morning that i have been accepted into the program. so here i sit, anticipating the next 6 months of my life living in the place i have always felt called to. i feel so inadequate but He makes me adequate. one of the poorest communities in gaborone is located a mere 9 minutes from the university. another detail that amazes me. the community is called "old naledi" and i can't wait to pour into the people of this area and all over gaborone. pray that i can remain focused on my schoolwork ;)  if you are reading this please pray for me. as much as i am excited, i am nervous. what lays before me is somewhat daunting and i know i will miss my family, friends, school and simplicity of life in the states. i leave in just a short 19 days and just found out today that what i have been hoping would happen actually will be happening. i don't have much time to prepare mentally, emotionally, or logistically but i know that the Lord is working it out and i have nothing to fear. and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. romans 8:28